Helen's Tower

Frederick Temple Blackwood became the 5th Lord Dufferin and Claneboye and inherited the estate at his father's untimely death in 1841, while still a minor. When he came of age in 1847, he decided to surround Ballyleidy House (later called Clandeboye House) with a large English landscape garden. As that year was the worst of the Great Famine, the work might in part have been motivated by the desire to help people affected by offering employment. Lord Dufferin planted trees and created a lake. He decided to embellish the park with a landmark by building a lookout tower on a hill. For this he engaged William Burn, who was well established as an architect of country houses. The Scottish…

over the stair tower.]] The tower's style is Scottish Baronial Revival. It seems to be the earliest of William Burn's designs in this style. Its height is 60 ft as was measured on the scaled elevation drawing in Howley (1993). The tower consists of a base, a main body, and a flat turreted roof. The base, which contains the ground floor, has battered outer surfaces that pass without break into the vertical walls of the tower's main body. The base and the main body are square in plan and comprise a round stair tower that projects from the northeastern corner. The tower's flat turreted roof, or roof-bastion, forms a viewing platform that is surrounded by four corbelled corner turrets linked by…